P315

Lexmark's P315 is a three-colour thermal inkjet printer that uses a standard Lexmark tricolour cartridge. Unusually, it has no PC connectivity options at all; to print from the P315 you either insert your flash memory card in its card reader slots or connect a camera to the PictBridge port. If you want to print an image from your archives, you'll have to shift it on to a memory card first.

The P315 gives you basic controls to adjust your images via its colour LCD. You can adjust brightness, choose to print in black and white or print just a portion of the image by applying cropping.

The P315 turned out best-quality 4" x 6" prints at a speed of 3 minutes 2 seconds per print in our tests, which is relatively slow compared to other photo printers. Image quality was adequate, but not up to the standard set by dye-sublimation and competing six-colour printers. The prints from the P315 showed noticeable inkjet "dots" and there was some slight banding evident.

During our testing, the P315 managed 80 4" x 6" prints from a full cartridge before quality began to noticeably degrade. That works out at a quite expensive cost per print.

Although it isn't particularly compact, the P315 does come with a carry handle if you want to take it on holiday. It's easy to use and delivers decent prints in a reasonable amount of time. But it doesn't excel in any particular area, and its lack of PC connectivity makes it cumbersome option for anyone who wants to work on their photos before printing.